Zimbabweans whose lives have been shattered by a deep economic crisis reacted warily on Friday to a power-sharing agreement agreed by President Robert Mugabe and the opposition.
With inflation at an official rate of 11,2-million percent, mass unemployment and chronic shortages of food stuffs, many people want to wait to see whether Mugabe and opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai can make their relationship work.
”I am happy that there is a deal, but it’s too early to celebrate. We still need to see how the parties will work together,” said Billy Moyo, an unemployed 32-year-old from Bulawayo, Zimbabwe’s second largest city.
Moyo ekes out a living selling soap, cooking oil and maize brought across the border from South Africa on the thriving black market.
Fungai Chiganze, a newspaper vendor in Harare, said any agreement between Mugabe’s Zanu-PF and the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) meant little unless people’s lives change for the better.
”Zanu-PF cannot be trusted. In fact, it must be dissolved as it might try to swallow the MDC just like they did in 1987 when Zanu-PF swallowed PF-Zapu,” Chiganze said.
”If it’s true that they really agreed, then it must be a good deal for the MDC and us Zimbabweans,” he said.
Though he has no fixed salary, the newspaper salesman is better-off than most of his countrymen, who have no jobs. Daily life is made worse by the country’s worthless currency and sky-high food prices, which have turned Zimbabwe’s working class into ”starving billionaires”.
‘I hope he will not change his mind’
In June, at least 80% of the population lived below the poverty line, a factor exacerbated by the suspension of aid organisations ahead of the election in June.
The government accused the United Nations and other private aid groups of siding with opposition parties. The ban was lifted in August but many aid agencies still face restrictions.
Mary Murwira, a secretary at a women’s rights organisation, said she was not too optimistic about the outcome of the talks.
”We are a praying nation and we hope the deal will hold until Monday. The worrying thing is that President Mugabe has not said anything so far, and I hope he will not change his mind by Monday,” she said.
Murwira is one of the army of Zimbabweans who are skipping meals and walking or cycling to work to stretch their incomes.
”We have always prayed that there is food on our table and peace in the country,” she added.
Apart from spending long hours looking for or queuing for scarce commodities like sugar, cooking oil and cornmeal, Zimbabweans increasingly find themselves without jobs.
Thandolenkosi Dube, a clerk from Bulawayo said: ”My hope is that things will start changing after the signing of the deal.”
In downtown Harare supermarkets, shelves are empty with, few rotten foodstuffs costing millions of Zimbabwean dollars.
This week, Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe Governor Gideon Gono announced that Zimbabwe had licensed some shops to sell goods in foreign currency as it grapples with a burgeoning black market. — AFP
